Date of composition: 1915-17, 1927, 1931
Performed by: Neeme Järvi cond/ Scottish National Orchestra
The Gambler (Russian: Игрок) is an opera in four acts by Sergei Prokofiev to a Russian libretto by the composer, based on the 1866 story of the same name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Prokofiev had decided on this story as an operatic subject in 1914, and the conductor Albert Coates, of the Mariinsky Theatre, encouraged Prokofiev to compose this opera and assured him of a production at that theatre.[1] Prokofiev wrote the opera in piano score between November 1915 and April 1916, and completed the orchestration in January 1917.[2] Vsevolod Meyerhold was engaged as stage director. However, in the wake of the 1917 February Revolution, that production never occurred. The opera did not receive its first performance until 1929, after it had been extensively revised (in 1927).
The story centers on the snobbish denizens of a German spa in an imaginary city where casino gambling is the main pastime. Alexei, the title character, is a young man with a university education who has squandered his social standing through gambling. He has found work as a private tutor to the children of a disdainful retired general, another gambling addict, heavily in debt to a preening marquis. Alexei is in love with Polina, the general’s stepdaughter, who, as a demure young woman, must be discreet about her own gambling compulsion.
Prokofiev produced an orchestral suite from the opera in 1931. The four portraits are Alexei, Babulenka, the General and Polina; the dénouement is not, in fact, the last scene of the opera, but represents Alexei's winning streak at roulette. As The Gambler is not a number opera, none of the characters has any extended arias; Prokofiev, therefore, gathered the basic materials for the suite by tearing up the score and heaping the pages relating to each character together in piles.
TIMECODES:
0:00 - 1. Alexis. Allegro passionato
5:07 - 2. La Grand-mère. Moderato
10:51 - 3. Le Général. Moderato
13:43 - 4. Pauline. Moderato
19:21 - 5. Dénouement. Allegro (Gambling Scene)
SOURCES:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gam...
www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/ar...